


Onions

by Lauand



Category: Inception
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauand/pseuds/Lauand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur rectifies some incorrect assumptions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onions

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to Avierra for the beta-reading and general help. Concrit is always welcome.

 

 

It took him more than a week to realize that Eames was not, in fact, a stupid asshole. He was a clever one. And it puzzled Arthur how that fact might have escaped him at first. Some people mistook a British accent for a cultured background, as if there weren't dimwits in Europe, as if the census of the United Kingdom listed its inhabitants by strict order of succession to the throne. But Arthur had done his homework and knew Eames was just another street rat. After meeting him in person, he had assumed that people just put up with him because he had a prized skill. Not that he was entirely dumb; you can't survive as a crook for long if you are not at least a bit smart. But that's not the same as being intelligent, and Eames definitely wasn't. Or that's what Arthur had thought. When the realization hit him that Eames was not only that, but also fucking brilliant, it was so unexpected that he actually voiced it.

“Nice of you to notice, Arthur, thank you.”

The tone had been somewhere between dismissive and smug, but Eames' expression when he had talked had definitely been bemused.

\---

It took him several months to realize that Eames was not, in fact, violent. His ruthless competence killing projections had actually blinded Arthur to the fact that Eames avoided confrontation with real people whenever that was possible. Arthur didn't really understand because he himself had had to work extremely hard to be able to stand his ground without getting his ass kicked and was always dying to administer some karma injection to any misguided bastard who happened to need one. So it was a mystery to Arthur why Eames, with the kind of shoulders he had, preferred to laugh offensive comments off, to subtly humor assholes and even suck up to them a little bit so that they didn't notice the veiled insults he delivered hidden behind his charlatan blabber. Eames had the kind of smile that came off as moderately pleasant even if you couldn't be sure if he was laughing with you or at you, or even if he was laughing at all. He was built like a bully but he never chose to fight even when it was evident that he would win. And Arthur knew that, in their world, that was sometimes the only way some people could learn to respect you. Arthur didn't get it.

So, when their usual bickering had escalated so out of control that Arthur wasn't even sure why he was so definitely pissed off at Eames or how he had ended up on the brink of beating the shit out of the forger, a small part of his brain had wondered.

“If I pushed you enough, would you hit me?” Arthur muttered, face dangerously close to his.

Eames opened his mouth to answer hotly, but paused and closed it again.

“Why, Arthur,” he drawled instead after a while, only the intensity of his gaze giving away his displeasure, “I didn't know that was your thing.” He kept himself immobile, but one of his eyebrows made a rebellious, tiny attempt to raise.

Arthur was not one of those idiots Eames liked to play with. He knew he was being mocked and he actually considered finding out once and for all if he could take Eames on and kick his presumptuous ass. But for some reason, he didn't. And as he stomped out he actually wondered how Eames had managed to avoid confrontation once more when his contender had been so aware of his strategy.

\---

It took him more than two years to realize that Eames was not, in fact, unattractive. Arthur wasn't so hard on himself on that one, though. They didn't get to work together that often, after all, and usually Arthur had more important things to occupy his mind with, like keeping Cobb alive, for example, which was quite the all-consuming task these days. In comparison, something like sexual attraction was a child's game, something on which you didn't really have to reflect actively because other parts of your body did the thinking for you while you were busy otherwise.

Eames wasn't particularly tall. He wasn't particularly slim. He wasn't particularly handsome. He wasn't particularly shaved. He actually looked unfit, like someone who drank too much, ate junk food and didn't work out enough. He wore his hair in a classic part with a side sweep so flattened on his scalp that it practically came with the word “sleazy” painted on it. His suits were so ill-fitted that they made him look fat. His shirts were ugly. His wallet chain tacky. His general appearance was scruffy, unkempt.

But what had really fooled Arthur all that time had been the attitude. Eames didn't have a graceful gait. His body language didn't inspire confidence. His smarminess bordered on creepy, because nobody trusted a man who tried to be liked by everybody but didn't seem to care if it worked or not. He spoke with his mouth full. He wiped his sweaty hands on the legs of his pants. He didn't sit so much as sprawl on a chair. He was, in Arthur's not so humble opinion, actually disgusting.

So, at first, when they were under and Eames dressed up for the occasion, Arthur thought that the man was dreaming himself with enhanced features to fit better in another's subconscious or maybe out of vanity. Like creating a sophisticated forge of himself, something that just didn't correlate with the real, waking world. It wasn't until he started paying attention topside that Arthur entertained the suspicion that this was not the case.

This time, it wasn't a sudden epiphany for Arthur. It was more like water infiltrating a wall, seeping little by little so that it ended up being the logical conclusion, really, that there was a huge stain there after all those little signs. The first time was the hint of a smirk. Because Eames didn't smirk like he despised you. He smirked like he considered you his accomplice. And that did something to his face, something good, even if Arthur couldn't exactly explain what. Maybe the second time had been having to run from hitmen together. He had half-expected Eames to huff and wheeze and maybe even give up and make Arthur decide between sticking with him or leaving him for the wolves, but he had kept up admirably well for someone seemingly so unfit. And, after they had lost them and reached a safe house, Arthur couldn't help noticing that an adrenaline rush did wonders for Eames. The thought crossed Arthur's mind that he wouldn't look very different after sex, all flushed and sweating and disheveled and exhilarated to be alive. Which should gross out Arthur the moment he thought about it, but for some reason didn't.

Other times included working under. Because when Eames impersonated a woman, he actually looked like one, dressed like one, pouted like one, gazed like one, strutted like one. In heels. And Arthur couldn't really understand how a thug like Eames, with his bulky frame, lack of a waist and less than straight legs could get so perfectly how a woman's wide hips swayed with every carefully measured step. And that, the idea little by little sunk in, was what made Eames ultimately alluring. The fact that he made no sense.

So it was not the idea of his attraction towards Eames that surprised Arthur in the middle of work. It was the realization that Arthur actually wanted to act on it.

“Fuck me,” he said slowly to himself, like in awe.

From the other side of the warehouse came a mocking reply. “Is that a proposition, darling?”

It very well might be, Arthur thought. But aloud, he said nothing. He just flipped off in Eames general direction without taking his eyes off the screen of his laptop and that was that.

If his traitorous lips tried to curve in a smile when he heard Eames' soft chuckle, nobody was really looking at him to notice.

\---

It took him more than three years to realize that Eames was not, in fact, untrustworthy. Because everything about Eames screamed distrust to anybody with enough survival instincts to have reached five.

It wasn't that he was not reliable as a forger, he was. He stuck to the plan but was great at adapting to new circumstances when things went to shit and some improvisational skills were needed. But in the back of his mind, Arthur had always half expected to wake up one day to the muzzle of a gun when Eames finally sold his team out. Arthur always kept his teammates' finances in sight, just in case, but there was a million ways to skip the radars and, as had been already established, Eames was a clever asshole.

After some time, Arthur had reached the conclusion that Eames actually loved his job and he would probably want to keep on doing it for a while. Selling colleagues out wasn't exactly the best way to get new gigs. Arthur suspected he was just making excuses for this unjustified faith he had started to feel towards Eames' loyalty, but he allowed himself to rationalize his gut-feeling because there was no way to reconcile the way he was using the words “loyalty” and “Eames” in the same sentence without snorting.

And still, still, it was difficult to trust the man. Maybe he had proved himself on the job, but there was still something about Eames that made him seem unreliable on a personal level. Drunk, lonely businessmen at the bar could fall for his careless charm and seeming inoffensiveness. Jaded, unhappy women at a party could be tricked by his easy attentiveness and will to listen, but Arthur knew the trade, knew Eames' kind, if only because he was one of them, too.

So, yes, Arthur was aware that Eames was a cheater. With poker, with lovers, with the law, with whatever kept him alive and running. And not that Arthur cared, because from the very first time they had slept together he had known that and dismissed it as unimportant because you don't need to trust someone to fuck them, you just need to carry a false totem in your pocket.

But the thing was, Arthur discovered one night as they kissed like the world was ending tomorrow, that somewhere deep, maybe the marrow of his bones, Arthur actually believed in Eames. And, for a man like Arthur, especially in light of all the evidence that spoke against it, that was a deeply terrifying thought. So when he detected a hint of reverence in the way Eames had whispered _oh, God, Arthur_ in his ear, his survival instincts took over.

“I don't trust you...” Arthur warned breathlessly, pressing Eames' body against the wall of the hotel room, fingers working on a mustard shirt. “I don't need you... I don't even like you. It's just sex.”

Eames paused at that and kept his face totally blank. He then put there a congenial, tiny smirk.

“That was a beautiful speech, Arthur. I would clap, but I'd rather engage my untrustworthy, unneeded, unlikeable albeit sexy hands in the more useful endeavor of getting you undressed.”

Happy to have made himself clear, at least in front of Eames if not in front of himself, Arthur nodded and kissed him again.

\---

It took him more than five years to realize that, in fact, he was never going to be able to figure Eames out. He knew everything there was to know about the man. Not only past facts, but traits of character, too. Tastes, habits, everything. It was like having the exact translation of every word of a foreign sentence and still not getting the meaning. It drove Arthur crazy.

He had suspected for a while that Eames purposefully downplayed his intelligence and feigned orthography mistakes and mathematical miscalculations, but the fact was that his misspelling was authentic and his math truly, absolutely, completely sucked.

Eames could write with the most beautiful calligraphy if he so wanted, but his natural handwriting was an ugly scrawl with irregular characters and skewed lines. Arthur had actually asked about it once because he couldn't understand why Eames would choose to write like a six year old when he was actually able to do it right, and Eames had looked reproachfully at him and told him that there was a difference between being what you were because you were and being what you were because you knew you could be. Arthur had wanted to push it because Eames' cryptic shit didn't impress him, but something in Eames' attitude had told him it was a touchy subject and he'd rather let it rest.

After sleeping with him and watching him naked, Arthur had understood that Eames was not unfit at all, much less fat. Arthur had entertained the idea of Eames having created a character for himself, like a forge of sorts in real life, someone who was tacky and shady and dangerous to fit perfectly in their line of work, but to Arthur's utter shock, Eames did love paisley patterns, enjoyed gambling with a passion, and found loose slacks terribly comfortable. And that was the first impression Arthur had gotten of him anyway, but it didn't really make sense that, after discovering how Eames wrapped himself in so many, many layers of deception, the core ended up being exactly like the first external idea he projected of himself. And the thing, the bitter truth that stung Arthur the most, was that Eames had the potential of being anything, of being goddamned perfect if he so wished, and for someone who had worked his whole fucking life towards that same goal, to reach perfection, it was inconceivable that someone could have it so easily but chose not to.

So Arthur looked at him with a no small amount of resentment on a night they were both having a drink at the hotel's bar. It was a classy hotel, all glass and steel and wood and leather. He had ordered a Bruichladdich DNA simply because he could afford it. Eames was drinking a beer directly from the bottle. Arthur was elegantly seated and well-dressed, not a hair out of place. Eames' stubble could have put most hobos to shame and he was sprawled as if he was on the couch of his living room. And still, looking at him, Arthur wasn't even sure how he could have ever thought Eames was anything less than fucking hot.

“I don't get you,” Arthur said, because well, he didn't.

Eames looked at him, pondering the possible meaning behind Arthur's words.

“Oh. Really,” he said at last, slowly, which was Eames' twisted way of saying 'that is the point' without actually saying it.

Arthur wasn't so naïve as to believe that Eames was implying that being deliberately obtuse was part of an elaborate long-term strategy conceived exclusively with the purpose of seducing him by the paradoxical method of driving him up the wall, but it was nice anyway to consider it a possibility.

“Let's go,” Arthur suggested, getting up.

Eames didn't rise right away. He looked up at Arthur, who stared calmly back at him. He then glanced briefly to the unfinished glass of Bruichladdich on the crystal table. Then back to Arthur. If he was flattered that Arthur seemed to give preference to having sex with him over drinking up stuff that cost about £650 a bottle, he didn't show it. He kept his expression guarded, as he only ever did around Arthur, when he finally got up and led the way to the elevators.

\---

It took him more than six years to realize that Eames was not, in fact, the kind of man who bought Arthur's particular brand of bullshit. Although a part of him had suspected it all along. But Eames was adept at humoring people, and Arthur had been happy to fool himself into thinking that, as he was unable to read Eames, Eames shouldn't be able to read him. Eames was just considerate enough (or wanted something out of his wait) not to burst Arthur's bubble and to patiently put up with him. Which was another mystery in itself, since Eames wasn't a particularly patient man.

So, it wasn't really such a surprise when Eames finally called his bluff. He did it kindly, though, not making a big deal. Subtle as only a thug that wasn't a thug could be. It was after sex, when they were both blissed-out and too used to each other to be in a haste to leave the bed, or the room, or the city to avoid the awkwardness that came with being aware that it wasn't awkward at all between them anymore.

“You do like me,” Eames simply said. Which, in retrospect, was quite the innocuous comment if one considered the kind of things he was able to come up with on a good day. For one, Arthur was infinitely glad he hadn't uttered a 'you can't stop thinking about me', a 'if you stare at me any harder when you think I'm not looking you're going to drill a hole in my nape', a 'you're hopelessly in love with me' or something equally ridiculous and over the top, if not exactly inaccurate.

Eames was, after all, a very observant person.

“Go to sleep, Mr. Eames,” Arthur replied tonelessly without opening his eyes. He felt Eames' fingertips on his lips, calling him out silently on his smile. Arthur feigned a bite and this time he didn't try to hide his grin when he heard Eames chuckle.

 

 


End file.
